While they would have provided financial support if I had needed it, the greatest support my parents gave was emotional, psychological.

We tried the first evening to go down Division Street and Rush Street, but we couldn't get in anywhere because they didn't like [ Emilio Estevez] sneakers and they didn't like my boots. This was 1983 or '84, so it was ridiculous. We ended up at a jazz club, where you go downstairs and there's a very cool place.

It's great to work with people that you like, any job, no matter what you do.

[John Hurt] just really gifted, and I had a great time working with him and [am] very lucky to have worked with him.

I got to play Santa, too. It's really important to play Santa, you know.

It's more like the inner workings of John Bender. He feels like he's been given a short shrift, he's not been provided the opportunities that maybe these other kids have. So he feels like he begins in a hole. And instead of trying to raise himself up, he wants to bring all of them down. That's a dynamic that's pretty universal. And so that was the real foothold on that. It wasn't like, "Oh, my high school experience is like John Bender's [in St. Elmo's Fire]."

Heroes always make the right decision; I find that seldom happens in my life.